


the ascent of the soul

by AceQueenKing



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: (or as slow a burn as one can do in 49 one-sentence prompts), Age Difference, F/M, Kissing, Non-Explicit Sex, Slow Burn, Smoking, one sentence only challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 03:44:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16778950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: "Welcome to the Good Place," he says, and he tells himself, this time it will be different (it isn't).(Or: Tracing the path of Eleanor and Michael's relationship through 49 one-sentence prompts.)





	the ascent of the soul

**1\. congratulation**

"Welcome to the Good Place," he says, and he tells himself, this time it will be different (it isn't).

**2\. chess**

He examines Eleanor Shellstrop's brain like a rare exhibit; she has none of the wisdom of Socrates, the intelligence of Hawking, or any other outstanding attribute -- she is simply an Arizona dirtbag, totally indistinct from the masses, and yet: she foils him, again and again.

**3\. teamwork**

When he offers a truce, he doesn't expect her to argue for him, but she does.

**4\. healthy**

He watches her closely in the therapy sessions-cum-philosophy lessons, and tells himself it is simply because he wants to act more like one of them, so he can stick the knife in deeper, later, in a cold but inevitable betrayal.

**5\. yellow**

Her hair is beautiful, and reminds him of nothing so much as straw turned to gold as he brushes his hands across it.

**6\. newspaper**

He takes to carrying around her profile printed in newsprint, and tries to tell himself it's just academic (it isn't).

**7\. farm**

He wishes, sometimes, that the country reboot had lasted longer: he liked watching her give life to the plants around her.

**9\. trust**

"Don't you trust me?" He asks, casually, and his breath catches in his throat, even if it is a lie (it isn't).

**10\. rollercoaster**

"Yeah, I do," she says, with a smile, and punches his shoulder, sending him on a tumultuous summersault of emotions.

**11\. rock**

He is the architect, the holder of the keys, the rock, the king: _Ἄναξ, rex, מלך_ \- and he is losing control of his own experiment.

**12\. star**

Does it count as failing as a demon, if you fall for a mortal who shines like a star?

**13\. hell**

He wonders, sometimes, if this strange attraction to one of his own prisoners is a torture dreamed up by his superiors, but he's pretty sure it isn't.

**14\. phobia**

He watches her as she watches a romance video that she'll deny watching, watching her watching human lips move over one another, skin touching one another in a way that he finds completely, terrifyingly alien.

**15\. horse**

This is stupid, of course; she is insignificant, a creature who managed to live for 30 years miserably on earth, and died, and is being tortured; she's little more intelligent than a mare, albeit a mare with powers of observation that have ruined his plans roughly 800 times and counting.

**16\. detective**

He studies everything about Eleanor Shellstrop in hopes of understanding her, and tells himself his eyes lingering on her Romantic History tab have nothing to do with his own desires.

**17\. nightmare**

He rarely sleeps, but when he does, he dreams of her strange human lips, forming one of those bizarre human rituals where his strange lips meet hers, and he wakes up sweaty and confused.

**18\. nightowl**

"Don't like to sleep much? Me neither, really," she says, twirling a piece of hair after he stumbles into her walking alone down the cobblestone streets of hell, and Michael is struck almost dumb by the beauty of her simple gestures.

**19\. driving**

"Let's go for a drive," he says; she nods and takes his hand and he doesn't know what he's doing, but he likes that: the feel of her hand in his.

**20\. falling**

She keeps looking at him oddly, like something is wrong with him, and when she places her hand on his thigh, it's all he can do to tell himself it's out of concern (it isn't).

**21\. apple**

"I've never been out this far," she says, walking along the far side of the lake with apple orchard's that he has, in fact, just created.

**22\. play**

"Neither have I," he says, though he isn't talking about the orchards; he tells himself that it's just a play, an experiment (it isn't).

**23\. camera**

He hopes Shawn doesn't have any cameras here, because he can't imagine what sort of fib he would have to come up with to sell how they watch the dawn come up — arms curled up in one another, talking about nothing in particular — as some form of torture.

**24\. zombies**

"So, like, were you guys human, once? I mean...." She asks at the End of the Neighborhood party, and he hears the unanswered question buried within it.

**25\. party**

"No, and we're not taking applications, either, so don't get any ideas....dummy," he says, and grins maniacally, hoping she gets the clue, but he doesn't miss the way her eyes look away briefly, a light blush on her cheeks and thinks he's inadvertently sent another one entirely.

**26\. smoking**

He leaves her for a moment, ducks into a garage that has never held a car to clear his head; he pulls a cigarette from his pocket; "Can I bum one?" her voice asks, and he freezes.

**27\. monster**

She could be a good demon, he thinks, as she plucks the cigarette out of his mouth; she takes a long drag, exhales, and kisses him, devouring his heart utterly.

**28\. painting**

The next few moments burst into panic-infused still images in his demonic brain: he is kissing her, his hands on her shoulder, her hands on his hips.

**29\. floor**

He's not sure how they wind up on the floor, with her on top of him, kissing him like she will inhale his soul (and she just might).

**30\. garage**

"Can you...?" She asks, and he blinks, because he doesn't know how to answer that, even if he knows what she's asking; "Oh boy," she says, and stands, and then she's walking out the door and he wants nothing but for her to stay with him on this cold and disgusting floor.

**32\. morning**

He looks for her in the morning, after the train leaves; by unspoken agreement, they agree not to talk about it again, and devote the morning to trying to get to the actual Good Place.

**33\. escape**

Seeing Eleanor dressed up like a demon, the glasses, the heels - it has potential, he has to admit.

**34\. cake**

He wants to have his cake and eat it too, but when it comes down to it, he puts Eleanor through the portal without a second glance.

**35\. video**

If he could have actually watched her, instead of just being stuck watching an incremental timer ticking up thirty-second updates of her points, he might not have gone to earth — but he missed her face too much.

**34\. interview**

"You make a lot of sense, for a guy who's just tending bar cause you're like....old," Eleanor says, halfway into her fifth birthday drink; she looks over at him, her eyes cool and evaluating, and downs the glass before she finishes her sentence: "You're still hot, though, like, really hot, like a smokin' hot grandpa....Do you smoke?"

**35\. drunk**

He has no idea how lips work but he's trying to kiss her in a dirty alleyway and he isn't sure if what he's doing is right, but on the plus side, drunk humans don't really seem to know what they're doing either.

**36\. picknick**

She tastes like her five drinks, orange juice and vodka and just a pinch of cinnamon.

**37\. working**

He really wishes they'd had a class on how to handle humans in this situation, he really doesn't have a clue what he's doing with his hands under her skirt; happily, she seems perfectly willing to show him how to use his hand until she gasps and moans in his hands in ways that he can only describe as wickedly divine.

**38\. airplane**

He shouldn't stay but he does for a minute too long; she reaches a hand between his legs and frowns and he has to jump up and is quick to hand her a bit of money, just in case she needs it to get somewhere; she's confused, and he wants to tell her why, but he can't, and a few seconds later, he's gone, and he doesn't pay attention to what the doorman says as he stumbles back to Janet.

**39\. glasses**

"Your glasses are askew," is all Janet says when he takes his seat.

**40\. journal**

It's hard being on the other side; he sketches in a journal between watching the numbers come in, but it's not enough.

**41\. sacrifice**

He knows the rope that he's hanging himself with, going back to earth, but he tells himself it's worth it if it means saving her soul.

**42\. kiss**

She sees the door, and they might as well kiss it all goodbye right then and there, because she's just lost whatever chance she had, and it's all his fault.

**43\. anniversary**

The way she takes the news of her own eternal damnation for the 800th time makes him wonder if what he's missed about Eleanor Shellstop in all the ways they've clashed before is her resilience; she just shrugs off her eternal damnation and keeps on running — as she always has.

**44\. garden**

They stop at a botanical garden on the way to Phoenix, and she won't stop sneaking peeks at him; he smiles and asks if she likes what she sees, and she cracks a joke about a snake in a garden that makes the next silent hour in the car pure torture for them both.

**45\. child**

"Kids freak me out, man," she says, on the way back, and she bites her lip and looks at him carefully before saying, "You can't have kids, right, I mean....Human kids - half-human kids? That's like — not a thing? You can't make like, kids with demon tails and scaly hands and shit, Rosemary's Baby-style, right?"

**46\. fruits**

"Definitively not a thing," he says, though truthfully he isn't sure of that, but if it is a thing, it's not done in the way humans reproduce, he knows that much; she puts a hand on his leg that isn't entirely friendly and he blurts out the information about Chidi and Eleanor's relationship and — well, this is one reboot that he's ruined things in.

**47\. teaching**

The problem, when Janet takes them into her void, is that they learn everything that Janet knows, which is a lot, and suddenly Eleanor _knows_ and Michael _knows_ and only Jason loudly blinking Blake Bortles into and out of existence provides a satisfactory diversion for them all (if, simultaneously, dooming the soul of Jacksonville's quarterback).

**48\. choice**

"I'm not..." Eleanor presses those human lips together, laughs shallowly, and he can tell that she wants a drink that he can't give her as they sit in _the_ accountant's office - "I mean, Chidi is nice, but... I feel like those memories weren't...It's another Eleanor's life and I just - " She squeezes his hand and his heart jumps as the last words tumble from her lips in a vivid rush, "I mean, hell, if I'm going to be damned for all eternity, I might as well fuck a demon first, right?"

**49\. soft**

Her lips are soft as he captures them between his fingers; he thumbs a finger over them, parting her lips softly before he kisses her in response; damnation might be at their door, but for the moment, it's a sweet taste between them, fire and brimstone and deep, thrumming life, and he holds onto it as long as he can.


End file.
